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Public Domain

New Media Rights works with a variety of different local organizations that use the arts and media to make a social impact on their local community. One of these organizations is Urban Beats, located here in San Diego.

Urban Beats is a program for Transitional Age Youth (TAY) that works to de-stigmatize mental health issues and enhance wellness through creative expression. The program also provides a space for TAY to freely express themselves, and encourages members to explore the creative arts and job opportunities within the San Diego community.

Executive Director Art Neill will be speaking at the San Diego Press Club meeting on September 12th at 6pm. The panel is called "Nuts and Bolts: Intellectual Property – Protecting Yours and Using Others," and will include a discussion of using third party content online, protecting your own intellectual property, freelancers’ rights related to unauthorized republishing of their work, and journalists’ and media outlets’ responsibilities regarding work sourced from third parties.

The meeting is being held at the Procopio building in downtown San Diego, and the panel begins at 6pm.

Executive Director Art Neill and New Media Rights Fellow Erika Lee will discuss the basics of intellectual property at the San Diego City College on Tuesday, May 1 at 6pm! Come join us! The event is free and open to the public.

Congratulations to our client Sarah Moshman whose documentary Losing Sight of Shore recently made it to Netflix. The documentary tells the story of the first all women team to row across the Pacific from the United States to Australia.

Thank you to recent graduates Maresa Martin and Nathalie Garcia who provided legal services along with New Media Rights Executive Director Art Neill.

Ever wonder what sorts of issues you may encounter as a creator or entrepreneur, and when you might want to reach out to a real life lawyer? That’s what our book "Don't Panic: A Legal Guide (in plain english) for Small Businesses and Creative Professionals" is all about. This book is designed to help you through the legal issues you may run into as a creator, entrepreneur, or innovator. We focus on issues you may encounter from the inception of your business to the moment (that hopefully doesn’t happen) you get a nasty lawyer letter for the first time. While this book is not a substitute for legal advice, it can serve as a helpful guide to preventing and resolving legal issues.

Executive Director Art Neill & Advisory Board Member Kyle Welch, a technology transfer attorney for San Diego State University (and a former NMR legal intern!) will discuss the basics of Intellectual Property at Fablab Wednesday June 29 at FabLab San Diego. Come join us!

Over two years ago when we submitted comments in the United States Department of Commerce, United States Patent and Trademark Office and National Telecommunications and Information Administration copyright reform proceedings and again in our roundtable testimony, we advised a cautious approach that avoided the collateral damage that can come with hasty reforms. The final report takes a cautious balanced approach and shows support for many of the points we emphasized including:

The importance of developing a flexible criterion to help judges and juries determine the amount of statutory damages awarded. Particularly criteria that: consider whether the defendant use was non-commercial, had reasonable fair use argument and the financial means of the infringer. With flexible standards Copyright Trolls are much less likely to be able to exploit small-scale defendants’ lack of sophistication and resources to extract inappropriate settlements from them. (see pg 75 of the report for some of our thoughts)

The need for more public education on matters of copyright law, including fair use, to promote creativity.

The creation of easy to read fair use best practices developed within specific creative communities by creators, lawyers and other practitioners working in that specific area to help creators make informed decisions about fair use.

Recognizing the importance of having a small claims copyright court to help independent creators resolve disputes that doesn’t sacrifice important copyright safeguards, like fair use, in the process.(see pg 78 of the report for some of our thoughts)

As we've written about before there's a major justice gap when it comes to creators and entrepreneurs having access to critical legal services. While we do our best to provide free and low cost legal services, we’re only one organization. That's why we’ve created a national list of law school legal clinics as a resource to creators, entrepreneurs and even other lawyers to help find other legal clinics fighting to fill the justice gap. The clinics on the list typically provide completely free or low cost services depending on if you qualify and they have the capacity to take on new issues. Check out the complete list here.

In our new book, we focus on issues you may encounter from the inception of your business to the moment (that hopefully doesn’t happen) you get a nasty lawyer letter for the first time.

You’ll learn how to form your business, protect your intellectual property, and avoid problems when launching your project. Taking a few simple steps upfront to protect your business or project can save time and money down the road. Don't Panic has also been used in undergraduate & graduate classes nationwide to teach business and legal concepts to non-lawyers. Professors can request a FREE evaluation copy

FINALLY, CLEAR ANSWERS FOR LEGAL AND BUSINESS QUESTIONS WRITTEN BY LAWYERS AND DESIGNED FOR CREATIVES

After 10 years of advising creators and entrepreneurs, we’ve kept hearing about the same unsolved issue from our clients...

Creatives want to learn the legal and business rules they need to grow and protect their businesses. BUT they don’t have the resources to purchase 10 different books, read 100 different conflicting blog posts written by non-lawyers, and then spend $1,000 hiring an expensive lawyer to summarize them all before they’re understandable and usable.

That’s why we‘ve created our Resource Library. These checklists, best practice guides, and videos are made specifically for creative entrepreneurs who want the right strategies -- laid out in the right order -- to legally protect and thoughtfully grow their businesses.

We realized there needs to be an affordable and accurate place to find best practice guides written by lawyers but designed to be implemented by creators.

We are supporting the Library with ongoing updates -- which means you get new, actionable content for as long as you remain a member.

You can directly suggest new additions for the topics we’ll add. YOU as members, dictate what is added to the library based on what YOU need the most.

SIGN UP TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP IN YOUR PROJECT, AND YOU'LL GET A GIFT WHEN WE LAUNCH...